


Two Quarters and a Heart Down

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [44]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anderson's okay really, Dancing, Deductions, F/M, First Kiss, Love at First Sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tad Anderson loves to go dancing. He at least knows that's one thing he's good at. Tonight, he's going to meet the love of his life. If he doesn't scare her off with his general nerdiness and descriptions of crime scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Quarters and a Heart Down

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Dance, Dance by Fall Out Boy

The music was loud, the beat throbbing in his ears, and Tad Anderson knew his ears would be ringing all tomorrow as a consequence – but he didn’t care. Right now, all he cared about was the rhythm and the song, moving his body to the music, losing himself in it.

This had always been his escape: from his family and their persistent, inevitable disappointment in him; from the stress of work (especially on those days when Sherlock – the old Sherlock – had shown time and time again how much better he was at Tad’s job than Tad); from the tyranny of his wife; from his own sense of inadequacy.

Whatever else he’d done, or failed to do, Thaddeus Anderson had always had passion for the rhythm. Tad had taught himself drums when he was thirteen, much to his family’s irritation. He’d drummed in half a dozen bands all through high school and his early years at uni, but none of those bands got anywhere. He ended up focusing on his studies – in a field his parents weren’t keen on, but they’d never expressed any satisfaction with his choices, anyway. Tad stuck to it, though.

He’d only ever been merely satisfactory at his science, but Tad knew he was better with the drums. Not that he would ever have had the courage to make that his living, or had time enough to practise and improve the way he wanted to.  When he wasn’t allowed to make ‘that racket’ (which was often) Tad would sneak off to night clubs. He got in a lot of trouble for that, but he wasn’t looking to get drunk or get high. He just wanted to dance.

Tad was a good dancer, too. He’d won competitions, when he’d gone to the dance school on the sly, both as a teenager and as an adult. Those times his wife thought he was ‘working late’, and actually thought he was with Sally, he’d as often been out on the dance floor. Waltz, salsa, foxtrot, he knew them all. But this was his favourite. Freeforming to the DJ’s beats, dancing on his own maybe, but dancing. Confident that in this, at least, he had something. In this, at least, he was good.

Of course, now he had the band, and his drumming had improved a hundred fold.  It helped that he no longer had parents or his ex giving him that _Look_ anymore, the one that told him what a useless idiot he was.

Actually, Tad was still not used to the fact that he didn’t really get that Look from Sherlock any more. Well, sometimes, but no more than Sherlock gave that look to anyone, including John, and it didn’t feel personal these days. And when they were playing, he didn’t get that look from Sherlock at all.

Tad didn’t like to think he felt pleased about that, so he stopped thinking about it. He threw himself into a clever series of steps and a spin on his heels, then ground his hips through the chorus. Y _ou’re filthy and you’re gorgeous_. Tad had rhythm, damnit, he had _moooooooooves_. And that lovely little blonde dancing nearby had finally noticed.

He grinned at her. Tad was almost certain he’d seen her somewhere before, though he couldn’t quite place her. Here at the club, probably. Not at work, though that seemed to feel more correct. But no. He’d certainly have remembered her if he’d seen that beautiful face, that bright smile, those lively blue eyes, at a crime scene or in the lab.

She grinned back and came dancing up to him, matching him move for move. _Nice_ , he thought. _Bloody marvellous, actually._

The song wound down, and she stayed near him, still smiling.

“Hey,” he said, hoping he sounded cool and charming rather than nerdy and desperate, “Can I buy you a drink?”

“I’ll let you,” she said, “If you dance with me first.” She held her hand out to him as the next song swelled over the dance floor. He took her hand, stepped towards her space as she stepped into his. With one of her hands on his waist, one of his on her hip, they began moving together as though they did this all the time.

By the time the song finished, she was pressed close to him, and Tad thought he was half in love already. She was so graceful yet unreserved; a wonderful dancer, and she smiled and laughed with him, and he didn’t know if it was dancing or dancing _with him_ that made her happy, but he’d enjoy it, whichever it was.

She was just so, so lovely.

Three dances in, and she leaned in during the closing notes to say into his ear: “I’ll have that drink now.”

At the bar, Tad paid for drinks and leaned forward to be heard over the music. “My name’s Tad.”

 “I’m Charlotte,” she said. Her fingers brushed over his as she took the drink. His smile became more confident, and therefore not coincidentally he became much more handsome. He stood straighter, his stance in his tight black jeans and close-fitting black band T-shirt giving his slight physique a strong-yet-fey allure.

Charlotte leaned close to him again, pressing her lips against the shell of his ear. “I’m hot,” she said, and his whole body practically thrummed in agreement, “Let’s get some fresh air and you can tell me all about yourself, Tad.”

They went to a side exit and loitered at the doorway, letting the outside air cool their perspiration and the bass beat of the distant music pulse through their feet. Tad was slightly bemused by the fact that Charlotte – what a very pretty name – seemed genuinely interested in him.

“So, Tad, what do you do when you’re not dancing?”

“I’m a policeman,” Tad said, “Well, a forensic scientist, to be accurate.”

“So you don’t run around the streets chasing crooks?”

He thought she might be a bit disappointed about that. Women often were.

“No. I… help to catch them after the fact. You know. Like CSI and those shows.”

Charlotte appraised him seriously. “I always said I’d never date a copper, after what Mum went through.”

“Oh.” Tad was more disappointed than he could say. He’d danced with her and bought her a drink and had already been thinking, however vaguely, of a Charlotte-tinted future.

She pulled a rueful face. “My dad was a copper, but was invalided out of the force after being bashed by some hooligan.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you’re in the lab mostly, I suppose?”

“Well, at crime scenes too, to collect evidence. You know. That sort of thing.”

“Hmm.” The speculative look in her eye transformed into a hopeful smile. “I always admired my Dad, though. Doing his bit for the community. And I think scientists are sexy. Do you know Brian Cox?”

“The physicist who used to be in a band?”

“Keyboards for D:Ream, yeah.” Charlotte grinned, “I used to love them.”

“I play drums,” Tad blurted out, “In a… it’s just a hobby really. The band. Collared. Um.”

Charlotte’s grin got broader. “That explains your terrific rhythm.”

Or the other way around, but Tad was not about to correct her, oh no.

“Hang on,” and now she was frowning a little, and Tad’s heart began to sink again, “That guy, that detective guy, with the funny name. I’ve read about him in the paper. Do you know him?”

“Sherlock Holmes, yeah,” he confessed reluctantly, “Pretty well, actually.”

 _If she asks if I can introduce her, I bloody well will, it’ll serve ‘em both right_ , Tad thought, and immediately regretted it. Even if she only wanted to use him to meet the Great Brat, he didn’t want Charlotte to be on the receiving end of the Great Brat’s scathing commentary. He liked Charlotte, even if she wasn’t that keen on him after all.

“Doesn’t it drive you nuts, having some outsider shoving his oar into your work? He looks like the kind of bloke to swan in and be a complete prat.”

_I think I love you, Charlotte whatever-your-last-name-is._

What Tad actually found himself saying was: “He is a bit of a prat, but to tell the truth, there are times we’d be stuck without him. He doesn’t come in on everything, obviously, but when it’s tricky and time’s important, why not get help where you can? Sherlock helps us get killers off the street, so that’s good, yeah? And he’s brilliant. I mean, a _bona fide_ genius. It’s not his fault he's smarter than everyone he’s ever met combined.”

Charlotte regarded Tad with a kind of fond awe. “That’s… that’s really kind of mature and open minded of you. A lot of people might just be pissed off about that guy being on their turf.”

“I used to be like that,” Tad confessed, “But you know, after a bit, you have to stop wasting energy on it. It’s more important to catch killers, isn’t it? Actually, I’ve been trying to learn how he does it – it’s no trick, mind. It’s hard work, and I’m not half as sharp as he is. But I got better at it. It’s helped a lot on the job, actually. I have a checklist.” Tad instantly regretted the confession. _God, what a nerd._

But instead of backing away with excuses of needing to have an early night, she was leaning towards him, eyes bright with eager interest. “God, really? What’s on it? How does it work?”

At first he thought she was just being polite, but then he remembered that she thought Brian Cox was sexy. “I don’t have it on me right now, but it’s, you know. A checklist to look at signs and discrepancies. Like. Well. Does the victim wear jewellery? Is it consistent – is it all new and shiny, or is some of it old? If it’s old, is it an heirloom? If there’s a wedding ring, does it look well cared for, or that it comes on and off regularly? Are there piercings but no rings? That sort of thing. It can tell you a lot about someone’s marriage or family relationships or if they have a kind of double life.”

He went through some other of his regular checklist items. Soil or markings on the shoes and clothing, and whether it was consistent with the location where the body was found or where the person was last known or expected to be. The state of the victim’s hair, if the body was found outside their home or workplace, and whether it indicated they were well-groomed, in which case they might have been meeting someone, or unkempt, in which case perhaps they had been kidnapped and brought to the location rather than come of their own free will.

“There was this one case,” Tad told her, warming up to his subject at her obvious interest, “Where the dead man wore a suit that was damp, but the winter jacket over the top of it was dry. He’d been out in the rain, and the coat put on afterwards, which was weird, but the jacket’s shoulders had been stretched a bit, and then I could see marks in the grass, and it turned out the man had been killed out in the park opposite the car park, and the jacket was put on the body to make it easier to drag the deceased out of sight, and I could tell that before we’d even sent things off for analysis, so we were able to get to the park and find more evidence before the rain washed it away. We found blood spots there, the victim’s and the killer’s, and we could have missed it. My DI arrested guy’s brother before lunchtime the next day.”

Tad grinned at her, proud of his achievement that day, and then became suddenly self-conscious.

“God, I’m sorry, I’m going on and on about bodies and stuff. You don’t want to hear all that gruesome detail.”

“It’s all right, I’m interested, really,” Charlotte’s smile was sincere.

“I shouldn’t talk about me all the time. I mean. I want to know about you. Tell me about yourself.”

Charlotte leaned in, conspiratorially close. “If you’re learning to do what that detective does,” she said, “Try deducing me.” Then she leaned away again, and waited.

Tad took a breath and, with her smiling permission, he looked her up and down. He took in her hair and jewellery and clothes. He held her hands and inspected them, front and back. He thought back to the bar, when she had opened her bag to retrieve a tissue while he got the drinks.

“You cook,” he said, “I’m not sure if it’s a job or something you just love to do, but you’ve got a small burn on the back of your thumb that’s consistent with brushing it against a hot grill tray, and some really tiny scars on your finger, typically where people who do food preparation might slip. You have some faint discolouration from older burns too but they’re all small and all on your hands, mostly your right hand. A lot of chefs have those.”

“I studied food science, and I work in a lunch café,” Charlotte said, then nodded encouragingly, so Tad continued.

“Your left wrist is slightly out of alignment, so it looks like you fractured it, but when you were young. You didn’t need stitches or anything, but it wasn’t set quite right.” He ran his finger over the  bone that protruded slightly more on the left wrist. “I don’t know how you got it, but most kids get fractures like that falling off bicycles.”

 “I was twelve, and it was my brother’s bicycle.”

“Okay. Um. Well, you had your hair cut this morning.” Feeling courageous, he ran a finger behind her right ear and drew it away with a few short slivers of clipped blonde hair adhering to it. “The cut looks really good,” he added, “It suits you. You look lovely.”

“What else?”

“You’re asthmatic – I saw the spray in your purse when you got a tissue out earlier – but dancing didn’t make you wheeze, so it’s not severe. I’d guess that chemicals set you off more than activity – your perfume is really light and mild. It’s lovely, too. You smell terrific.”

He swallowed down on that sudden, inappropriate admission, but Charlotte’s sunny smile only blazed brighter. “More.”

“You used to have more piercings,” he said, “Several in your upper right ear, and one in your nose and one on each side of your lower lip. There are tiny little scars there. Like dimples.”

“I used to be a Goth,” she admitted, leaning closer.

“I used to be into punk,” he admitted.

“I like my boys just a little bit bad,” she said, and the distance between them vanished, and they kissed.

“I like them smart, too,” she said when they parted, “Forensic scientist drummer man.”

“I like _you_ ,” breathed Tad, and they kissed again.

Eventually they went back inside and danced again, bodies pressed close, for a dozen more songs.

Charlotte turned out to live close by, so Tad walked her home. They stood at the door to the block of flats, and kissed some more.

“I won’t invite you up,” said Charlotte, between kisses, “Not tonight. But I want to see you again.”

Tad pressed his lips to that warm pulse point below her ear and breathed in the subtle, delicious scent of her. “I don’t want to rush things,” he said, “I’ve had things not work out before, and I’d really… I really want to…” He thought, _I really want this to work with you_ , but thought it was too soon to say it. “I want to see you again, too.”

She slipped a hand into this pocket to retrieve his phone, and he watched while she added her phone number to his address book, then watched as she took a picture of him with his phone and messaged it to her own number.

“So I don’t forget what you look like,” she grinned. Then she took a photo of herself. “There. You won't forget me either.”

 _As if I ever would._

They kissed again, a kiss goodnight, a kiss goodbye – but Tad knew, he really did, that it felt so much more like a kiss hello.

 


End file.
